The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flaming Forest, by James Oliver Curwood

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Title: The Flaming Forest

Author: James Oliver Curwood

Posting Date: September 6, 2009 [EBook #4702]
Release Date: December, 2003
First Posted: March 3, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FLAMING FOREST

BY

JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

AUTHOR OF THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN, THE COUNTRY BEYOND, THE ALASKAN,
ETC.

THE FLAMING FOREST

I

An hour ago, under the marvelous canopy of the blue northern sky, David
Carrigan, Sergeant in His Most Excellent Majesty's Royal Northwest
Mounted Police, had hummed softly to himself, and had thanked God that
he was alive. He had blessed McVane, superintendent of "N" Division at
Athabasca Landing, for detailing him to the mission on which he was
bent. He was glad that he was traveling alone, and in the deep forest,
and that for many weeks his adventure would carry him deeper and deeper
into his beloved north. Making his noonday tea over a fire at the edge
of the river, with the green forest crowding like an inundation on
three sides of him, he had come to the conclusion--for the hundredth
time, perhaps--that it was a nice thing to be alone in the world, for
he was on what his comrades at the Landing called a "bad assignment."

"If anything happens to me," Carrigan had said to McVane, "there isn't
anybody in particular to notify. I lost out in the matter of family a
long time ago."

He was not a man who talked much about himself, even to the
superintendent of "N" Division, yet there were a thousand who loved
Dave Carrigan, and many who placed their confidences in him.
Superintendent Me Vane had one story which he might have told, but he
kept it to himself, instinctively sensing the sacredness of it. Even
Carrigan did not know that the one thing which never passed his lips
was known to McVane.

Of that, too, he had been thinking an hour ago. It was the thing which,
first of all, had driven him into the nor